February 2005 Issue

While students chose many ways to enjoy recent snow days, one popular past time that continued was sledding. It is widely known that the best ad hoc sled for a college student is a cafeteria tray. Theft of trays by Brandeis students for sledding purposes costs Aramark thousands of dollars each year. These costs are passed on to students in dining fees.

The Brandeis University Mock Trial Association, which last week won a coveted spot at a national tournament in Florida, may not be able to attend due to funding constraints. Neither the Student Union nor the University will provide funding for transportation and lodging for the event. Mock Trials experience vividly illustrates a problem that is increasingly frustrating leaders of successful and high-achieving Brandeis clubs.

Brandeis Universitys Mock Trial Association will vie for a national slot at an intense two-day competition to take place this weekend at Connecticuts Manchester Community College (MCC). The 2005 American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) Northeastern Regional Mock Trial Tournament will determine which two of the twenty-three contending teams will continue on to compete for the honor of representing their schools in Des Moines, IA this April.

University classes were cancelled all day Monday and on Wednesday after 2 p.m. due to incliment weather resulting from over three total feet of snow being dumped on New England. Classes, however, were not the only thing effected by the snow. Modfest, which was scheduled to be held this Saturday, has been delayed.

Five years after Brandeis began providing cable television for every student on campus, Information Technology Services (ITS) is piloting a program that can bring it to the computer screen. Announced to campus media last week after inquiries from the Hoot, the pilot begins Monday and will allow students to view Comedy Central, FOX 25, and Owl Vision, a channel run by ITS, using a Java applet in their web browsers. The system, known as IPTV, transmits television signals as data over the campus computer network.

None of the Student Union Senators who voted to approve the charter of Brandeis University Mock Trial Association back in 2001 are still on Senate today, and few of them are even still at Brandeis. Thus there is no one to ask what senators were thinking when they cast their ballots for an organization with the primary goal of competing at off-campus tournaments.

We could not help but notice that in the last edition of The Hoot, an article by Danny Wolfe identified Walid Shoebat as being from the town of Bethlehem, Israel. Though this might seem a trivial matter, given the rather inflammatory (or at least highly controversial) character of Mr. Shoebats presentation, we consider it extremely important that all efforts be made to present as brutally accurate a picture of Middle Eastern affairs as possible both for the sake of public discourse, and to avoid the puerile finger-pointing which so often characterizes such discussions.

I saw the flyers advertising Walid Shoebat whom, as one flyer stated, had converted from PLO-terrorist to Zionist plastered all over campus. I saw another flyer referring to Shoebats presentation as Confessions of terror. What struck me so much from these flyers was the sensationalism that they embodied.